Feline Overlord

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A little over six months ago, the last Feline Overlord at Chateau d’Archvillain died without an heir to the throne. I’ve been an acknowledged catsoftie since before I could walk, and this is the longest I’ve been without a furry little despot to boss me around. It’s a bit surreal, actually. When we had cats in residence, we were always having strays turn up and try to move in. Now that we are de-catted against our will, we can’t attract a new one to save our lives.

FSM knows we’ve tried. The Archvillainess has continued her usual practice of feeding a variety of furry freeloaders with high-quality, home-made gooshy foods. There’s always at least a half-dozen cats lining up for mealtimes at Chez Archvillain, tapping their feet, drumming their little paws impatiently, and frequently checking their Hello Kitty watches and wondering why the wait staff is so incompetent. One would think that some of these cats might be willing to move in and become the new Rulers of the Archvillain domicile, but one would be wrong. Not one of the smug bastards will even let us get within three feet of them without running away.

The Archvillainess and I have looked into adopting a cat or two from the local shelters, but they all charge a hundred dollars plus for the privilege- per pet. Paying for a pet has always seemed unnatural to me, especially when there are so many abandoned, stray, and feral cats roaming around. When we were stationed overseas, cats were coming out of the woodwork all around us. It took us weeks to find new homes for them all before we transferred back to the World. We checked with our local vet, and thought we might have a winner.

It seems some ass-hat had skipped out on the last month’s rent and left the family cats behind. They were discovered by the homeowner three weeks later. The homeowner wants to sell the house, but can’t because there are still four cats roaming around the place. The vet’s office said that the homeowner wanted to find homes for all four cats, but would have them all put to sleep if it came down to it. Rather than have these cats destroyed through no fault of their own, we decided we might take a couple- maybe even all four.

So I called the woman who was listed as the point of contact for these abandoned cats and told her we’d be interested in taking a couple of the cats, if they were still available. I gave her the phone number to Chateau d’Archvillain, then called the Archvillainess and let her know the lady may be calling about the cats. Sounds like a fairy-tale ending, doesn’t it?

It turns out the fairy-tale was more like a bad southern gothic novel. The lady I’d spoken to turns out to be the homeowner in question- the one who threatened to have the cats killed if she couldn’t find homes for them. Ironically, she says she wants to visit our house to make sure we’d be fit caretakers for the cats. She’s keeping these animals in cages in their old house after they were abandoned, she’s threatening to kill them if she can’t find homes for them, and yet she has the nerve to imply that we might not be an acceptable household for the cats.

I said I’ve had cats since before I could walk. Over the past four decades, I’ve been owned by almost thirty cats at one time or another. Every last one of those cats was well-fed, loved, cared-for, and given whatever medical care they needed whether or not we could really afford it- and I have the vet bills to prove it. We bought our house with cats in mind- we’re on a quiet street that runs only four blocks and doesn’t intersect any major thoroughfares. The nearest street with lines on the road is eight blocks away. As soon as we closed on the house, we had a fence put in to give our cats a safe haven and room to play and hunt. We kept a back window open year-round so the cats could come and go as they wished, and cheerfully paid the higher electric and gas bills as a result. We are cat people. To have this woman imply that we are possibly unfit to be minions to Feline Overlords is an incredible insult.

So we’re going to get a new Ruler or two somewhere else. There are a couple of kittens at the vet’s office who need homes. Maybe we’ll take those. Maybe we’ll wait until the shelter has a free adoption special. What we won’t do is allow some alleged human to get away with blackmail. Publish and be damned, you disgusting harpy! I don’t negotiate with terrorists, and threatening to kill four innocent animals because their presence is inconvenient unless you are allowed to pry into my life and home qualifies as terrorism in my book. It may not rate up there with the big leaguers in Al Qaeda or FARC, but it’s still terrorism to me. I like most animals more than I like most humans, and this woman rates somewhere lower than politicians on my scale of lower life-forms.